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Trudeau telegraphed pipeline choice years ago

Let the wailing, hair-tearing and gnashing of teeth begin. Let Green Party Leader Elizabeth May be fitted with her prison smock.

But also, let there be no mistake: It was inevitable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would approve the $6.8-billion expansion of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline. This was the only rational move available to him -- and has been telegraphed as such, not for months, but years. Anyone voicing shock and indignation is either faking it, or hasn't been paying attention.

In the aftermath of Tuesday's news that Trudeau approved two major oil pipeline projects, Trans Mountain and Enbridge Line 3, and killed a third, Northern Gateway, the ululating has been severe. Various New Democrats are outraged. May has vowed she'll go to jail, presumably following some prosecutable act of civil disobedience, such as chaining herself to an oil barge.

Pundits have hemmed and hawed about the terrible quandary of Trudeau's position and the dire straits into which he has thrust his party in southern B.C., where opposition to Trans Mountain has been vocal and will continue to be.

In fact, it was never a quandary. Trudeau has been systematically laying the groundwork for this for better than four years -- since his first campaign stop in Calgary, on Day 2 of his leadership run. No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave it there, he said back then, and repeated it Tuesday.

In October 2013, in a speech to the Calgary Petroleum Club, Trudeau elaborated on the theme. "We need to open markets to our resources and facilitate the creation of pathways to those markets in responsible, sustainable ways," he said, later adding: "Part and parcel of that strategy ought to be a national approach to pipelines and development, within an overall framework that puts a price on carbon . . ."

Oil is Canada's most important commodity, constituting 20 per cent of the annual worth of our exports and underpinning the value of our dollar and our national wealth. Because so much of what we produce is landlocked, much of it now trades at a steep discount, upwards of 25 per cent, to the global price.

That translates into billions less in annual revenue for federal and provincial treasuries, which means that much less for social programs, or that much more in debt. It is arithmetic even the federal NDP -- as distinct from Premier Rachel Notley's Alberta NDP, now a very different party with diametrically opposing values, using the same name -- and Greens should be able to grasp.

And here's why the Liberal claim this was done with political considerations set aside should not be met with hoots of laughter. Their over-arching goal -- again, since 2012, when winning power was still just a gleam in the eye -- has been to foster conditions for middle-class and working-class job growth at a living wage. That is the alpha and omega of Trudeau's prime minister-ship and the measure by which he has said he wants to be judged.

Short of everyone working in the public service as a teacher, cop or nurse, that means expanding the resource sector. Kinder Morgan expects to generate 15,000 jobs in the Trans Mountain construction phase alone, and the equivalent of 37,000 spinoff jobs after that. Not to mention the enormous economic benefits for Alberta and also for Ontario, which contributes significantly to the oil patch supply chain.

A pipeline westward is more important than a pipeline eastward, because the behemoth of potential new energy markets is China. Trans Mountain is thus the queen on this Liberal government's game board and any backing down or backing away is not in the cards. Elizabeth May, one hopes, will get a cell with a window.